At this moment, I feel totally bedraggled. And I think that came out in my Zentangle Inspired Art, or ZIA. Day 17 of One Zentangle a Day gave me three more patterns yesterday, but it wasn’t until today that I thought of a way to put them together, along with other patterns, into a “whole.” Today’s motifs were Vitruvius (the circle within square within circle “flowers”), Courant (the somewhat wood grained pattern), and Sedgling (the stemmed spiraled flowers). Not only did I not like these patterns, I did them in turquoise (my favorite color) using a very fine ballpoint pen with (I soon discovered) non-permanent ink. The pen point dragged, the ink ran, and my concentration went pfft.

The overall idea is fine, but the outcome looks the way I feel–clunky, tired, not quite what I intended. And that pretty much defined today.

If you’ve followed this blog long enough, you know two things about me. First, I live on a small island at the edge of the Caribbean Sea; specifically, I live in Sint Maarten, the Dutch part of the island of St. Martin. (The other side is French.) The second thing you might know is that I did not want to move here three and a half years ago. I am still on the island, and still trying to adapt to life in a country smaller than all but one small town I have ever lived in. Today was just one example of what I have tried hard to adjust to, without enough success.

Today was my bank day. Unlike in many parts of the world where you can go into a bank (assuming you don’t just do everything online) and be out in less than ten minutes, here you can plan to picnic while waiting in line. And I had to go to two banks today–one to withdraw money; the other to pay bills like mortgage interest, condo fees, and the power and water bill. Also unlike “back home,” I am still waiting to be approved for online bill payment at both banks. I have already been waiting almost two months, but who’s complaining, right? This is all just part of life here. You get used to it, even as you grumble with the other customers in line about the service–for two hours. At least the wait was under an hour at the first bank. But I forgot about the local bank ban on internet connected devices (even though I can only get as far as Amazon Kindle books on my Paperwhite), and hadn’t brought (or bought) a paperback book or magazine with me. Yep. Almost three hours of waiting in line with nothing to do but get more frustrated. And it was my own forgetfulness that did me in.

Waiting. In the Caribbean. It’s not just waiting for a good internet connection to be installed at home; it’s also learning to wait for almost everything here–the banks, the service, appointments, the power to come back on… Let me tell you, I am grateful that my veterinarian finally went to appointments out of self preservation (and furry patient consideration, I think).

Clearly, it gets easy to become bedraggled from waiting when you actually live in “Paradise.”

So when I started this ZIA, I was not doing too well physically or mentally. I wasn’t happy with putting together the three tangles because I am not terribly crazy about any of them to begin with. And the power went out with humid heat simmering outside and eventually inside. It was a challenge to come up with a way to use these together, especially under the cumulative conditions.

Too late, I realized that this grouping has potential. The “vase” can easily be morphed into a frog or fish shape; the “flowers” can be placed better with a different “fill” pattern. The main bouquet flowers can be spaced better, a felt-tip marker can be used instead of the V-ball .05 ballpoint pen with clearly non-water resistant ink, etc., etc., etc..

Maybe the waiting gave me insight in hindsight.

But I still feel bedraggled.

Remember the meditation process as you get ready to Zentangle. Today, I forgot.